Wednesday, November 26, 2008

A Christmas Tale, directed by Arnaud Desplechin, starring Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric and many other brilliant actors, is one of those movies that lets you know it’s a movie. For better or for worse.

So beautiful, with occasional scenes that are truly brilliant, you just wish someone had trimmed away some of the excess so you could say, “I was blown away.”

Each character is wacked with some form of mental illness or low functioning impediment. And Momma needs a bone marrow transplant for her cancer.

It’s dark stuff, indeed, set in a French town just south of the Belgian border, north of Lille. And there’s snow.

I loved the movie for a while. There is an amazing scene, as subtle as anything gets, when the drunken, most problematic grown son, Henri, sits with his mother outside on a bench and they both speak freely about how they don’t like each other. But they do. But they don’t. It has three layers, at least, of ambivalence. And for this alone, I was so happy to have watched this movie.

I particularly liked the work of Emmanuelle Devos who played the wacky girlfriend of Henri. No matter how weird things got, she just sat there completely bemused by the events collapsing around her.

Catherine Deneuve is old, plump and about as brilliant as I’ve ever seen her work. She is one of the rare talents that can exist in front of the camera instead of putting on any kind of show.

There is generous use of direct address to the camera and bagpipes, for no reason at all. You have to love the whimsy. It is also shot so beautifully.

At times I felt like I was watching a modern French version of You Can’t Take it With You. But so what?

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

What concerns me about Obama, in addition to the future first pooch, is he might bight off too much too quickly.

Of course, economics, such as they are right now, may thwart him.

But in my world view, and I admit I cannot really understand the whole world, I do hope we all slow down. And I hope Obama is an agent of slowness. Steady. But slow.

When the WPA type jobs come through to build new infrastructure, I say, do them slow and steady. A few bridges a year. A few trains a decade. Keep people employed for the long haul, not the short, shoddy haul.

Where I grew up, we have the beautiful Palisades Parkway. It is only about forty miles long and didn’t take too long to build. It would be so nice to have other beautiful roadways and bridges in the spirit of the Palisades Parkway. These days, one fears they’ll go at this whole new building frenzy in a very utilitarian way. I say, go slow and beautiful. And be home by five to relax with the family. Besides, going too fast, even if it is a works program, isn’t that, oddly, another kind of bubble mentality?

Friday, November 21, 2008

Eighteenth months ago I did a few flips off a diving board in Long Beach at our friends’ pool. On the last flip (for life) I landed square on my lower back and I have not been the same since.

Of course, it’s not cystic fibrosis. I mean, one must not get dramatic.

But, having tightness traveling up and down my leg, numbness, pain, etc, for months: Oh, welcome to middle age! I made an appointment, maybe looking for something I could do, alternative like, man.

At the doctor’s office today, no one wanted to do their work. Seems like with this downfall, many intrinsically lazy people are just saying, “Fuck it,” at a time when they need to ramp it up a bit. And maybe mean spirited people who usually have to keep a clamp on it are letting it rip. The doctor was furious and nastily cranky, stating that the cause of my lower back problem is my weight. “For every ten pounds you are overweight, that’s fifty extra pounds on your lumbar spine. You know it’s curved right? How tall are you? How much did you weigh in high school? You should head toward that weight. Probably all your problems will go away.” The lanky, cranky man.

I was aghast. I told him I wasn’t even full grown in high school, so let’s deal with freshman year of college. Okay, I was ten or fifteen pounds lighter then. But I mean, that was a long time ago and I’ve had a lot of pork chops since then. I told the doctor, “Well, I was about 165 or 168 pounds,” I told him, with an expression on my face like, “Are you really serious about full grown adults trying to recapture the weight of their youth?”

He talked about his running miles every day. He clearly hates himself. Sure, he’s thin. I mentioned something about being middle aged, not really including him, and he quickly responded, “I’m not middle aged.”

Then the phone rang. A nurse asked something about drops. The doctor yelled into the phone, “You called me for this? Why are you calling me? Put in the drops. Just put in the drops.” He slammed down the phone, completely peeved that he was being bothered for something so routine and looked right at me, searching for an ally, and said derisively, “Guacamole,” like he was saying, “Fucking Mexican idiot.”

I just looked at him, stunned.

Later in the hall, he was putting someone down, a co-worker, for not covering his mouth when he coughed and the put down man, sounding exhausted from daily lambasting said, “There was no one around, so I didn’t cover my mouth. There was no one around. Should I have covered my mouth if there was no one around?”

When I was leaving, I tried to get some paperwork from the front desk. The front desk person looked at me blankly, like I was destroying her special slow-time-at-the-lunch hour with my Danielle Steele book. Eventually, I got what I needed.

Let’s not let these bad times make us bad people. Get off your ass if you are sitting on your ass. If you are sitting on other peoples’ asses because you’re a jerk, get off their ass.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Just this afternoon, the California Supreme Court decided to grant review to numerous lawsuits regarding Prop. 8, making the case that:

• Prop. 8 is invalid because it constitutes a revision of, rather than an amendment to, the California Constitution.

• Prop. 8 violates the separation of powers doctrine under the California Constitution.

• If Prop. 8 is not unconstitutional, the marriages performed before Prop 8 passed should still be valid.

The court gave a very short briefing schedule, giving the state until December 19th to respond and giving our side until January 5th to respond to those briefs. Amicus briefs must be filed by January 15th, with replies to those due by January 21st.The court did NOT grant a stay of Prop. 8 as had been requested. So, during the pendency of this matter, no marriage licenses will be issued to same-sex couples. Over the past 100 years, the California Supreme Court has heard nine cases challenging either legislative enactments or initiatives as invalid revisions of the California Constitution. In three of those cases, the Court invalidated those measures.

We are very pleased that the Court has granted review of these cases (they could have opted to not consider the lawsuits), but this should not be considered an indication they will rule in our favor. We’ll keep you updated as news develops.

Sincerely,Lorri

If you missed the Olbermann Coverage, this is what it’s all about: Love, man.

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Friends, the “liberal” media has been printing many stories and Op-Ed pieces about the outrageousness of gay outrage against the Mormon-LDS church. There has also been much sympathy for gay rights. However, in the name of trying to keep things simmered down, we are being told by many people to not be so furious with the Mormons. That this could backfire. There is also a holy overtone which has an oppressive undertone declaring, “Thou shalt not wag your finger in the face of God fearing worshippers.”

I say screw those Mormons and the lost golden tablets they rode into California on.

Look, I have met many (okay, about six) Mormons and ex-Mormons and I find them to be lovely people—blond and Christian in the best sense of Mountain Time affability. Let them live, love, marry and farm. I have nothing against their church any more than the rest of them. If church going helps them to get in touch with their higher selves, I say go for it. But not while stepping on my face and the thousands (and ultimately millions) of faces of tax paying, decent loving citizens.

The Mormons cannot use their church to spread lies, to scare voters into believing their children will be tortured by gay marriage education, or that churches will be denied their tax-exempt status if Proposition 8 does not pass. It’s one thing to spread these lies, gossiping on your back porch, wagging your forked tongue over your backyard fence. But to stand up in front of your congregation and push your political agenda?

Nope. Illegal. Seriously.

Below are the instructions for what you can do. This is for my rights and equal protection and for my gay, lesbian and transgender cousins and for all mankind. Read the linked articles below, then click on the one page IRS form, fill it out using the instructions below and mail it in.

We do not believe the IRS will revoke the tax exempt status of the LDS church. But if these forms inundate the IRS offices, at least it sends the message to the LDS church that they are being watched.

As someone, okay my friend Barbara Deutsch, once said, “If you don’t stand up against bad behavior, then you are basically training the perpetrator to continue the same bad behavior.”

So, it’s time to train the Mormons. Please help out. It could be you, one day, who is discriminated against by a church. Everyone acts like, “Oh, don’t fight with the church. The church is off limits.” Bullshit. They used their bully pulpits to spread lies and to attack and suppress the rights of tax paying, regular citizens.

The way is clear: we cannot allow this on earth.

After you mail in your form, please forward this blog post to everyone you know and then ask them to forward the post to everyone they know. This is the link to use for this post. You can cut and paste and forward it. Please do:

List his occupation as President and the business as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Check the boxes for False Exemption and Public/Political Corruption.

Then in the Comments section demand that the LDS Church be fined and their tax-exempt status revoked for repeated and blatant violations of the IRS' s separate of church and state rules, and for conspiring to interfere with a state's political process.

You don't have to provide any of your own personal info. Mail the form and the printed articles to:

Internal Revenue ServiceFresno, CA 93888

If these instructions are too much for you, go to YAHOO MAIL and log in as taxtheldschurch, password is equalrights. There is a PDF file there in the inbox already filled out. Download it, print it and mail it. (Don't delete the email.) And please, do not forget to forward this blog post to your friends.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Not that we like to get up at 8:30 on a Saturday morning--but oppressed gay people do what we must.

The demonstration was huge, in full force. Like the circus, I find these colorful events exciting for the first twenty minutes. Then you notice it's nothing but elephants and clown cars.

The excitement really was intoxicating, full subway cars clapping whenever more protestors sardined their way in. The mayor spoke. Local gay celebs spoke. The lawyer who is bringing this to court spoke. But the best part was the march which terminated with a visit to Phillipe, the home of the original French dipped sandwich. Inside, we ran into so many substantial, hungry gay friends that we've known for years. It was homo-coming weekend at the kitsch sandwich hole. Very tasty.

Truly, the court just needs to turn this sucker over. Then, like every other adult who has the choice to get married whenever the hell they want to, I can sleep in on Satuday mornings like I'm supposed to, knowing that I have the same rights as everyone else.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Danny Boyle is one of the earth’s great living film makers. Trainspotting. 28 Days Later.

The movie is so beautiful. Go to a really good movie theatre to watch it.

It starts out pretty violent and you think, OH NO! But though there is violence throughout, really, this is a fairy tale. OH NO! But really, it’s about a really amazing pair of brothers who survive being orphaned. The early scenes got me the most. I was very close to my brother growing up and there was always a sense of surviving by helping each other out.

What happens is, and I’m not ruining anything here, Jamal wins the top prize of India’s Who Wants to Be a Millionaire but the cops think he cheated because it is implausible that a kid from the slums could know such answers. But then, the movie shows Jamal’s life, in flashback, through very fabulous filming and how it is that he knows the answers. And it’s not from simple accretion of knowledge. He also gets answers right by searching into his understanding of people, of the host of the show, his native intelligence. It’s a brilliant conceit, based on a novel. At times we get a little bogged down by this conceit, but not much.

Over time, the flashback careens into the present story and we get to the final round of the game. And Jamal wins. Again, not a spoiler. You know that up front. And there’s a girl involved. And guns. And mobsters. And lots of slum shots. And India today, changing faster than ever. Beautiful. Beautiful. Chaotic, fantastic, Democratic, messy India.

But really, what I loved mostly were the two brothers surviving childhood.

And: That Danny Boyle can really make a movie. Man.

Go to the website. It’s quite something. You can get lost in it for a week. slumdog millionaire

Thursday, November 13, 2008

We all know if you get too far left or too far right (especially too far right), you run into trouble.

If we had elders who could watch over us, elders who are removed and dispassionate and simply wise, we could ask them to help us. To keep us moderate. To temper the worst in us, especially when we think it is the best in us. The elders could advise us since they have already seen it all.

The elders could say, “Listen, you can’t get too greedy, because when you do, you are too busy trying to collect instead of trying to create. So your products suck. And eventually everything collapses.” They could say that to GM.

Or, the elders could say, “Listen, don’t get too communist with these corn growers. Because then, all you have is a lot of corn. And you’re going to use the corn, for sure. And people get really fat from corn.”

Elders could warn Obama, “Don’t spread yourself too thin, you thin man. Start with two, at most, three programs. And nurture them like crazy. And get everyone on board, focused. If you try to do too much at once, you’re going to make a mess of things.”

Elders could tell Sarah Palin, “You should go back to school. In your case, this would mean keeping very quiet and reading many many books that we will supply.”

Elders could have stopped Nixon. “Spend more time in China. Less with that tape recorder obsession. Obsessions always end in tears.”

Wise, dispassionate elders could have told Hillary Clinton, “If you want to win this one, you better stop acting like you deserve it more than anyone else. People get turned off by that sort of thing.”

Elders could have told G.W., “Though God might be your thing, you have a job to do. If you get too caught up in the clouds or in your holy hunches, the world will fall apart all around you. You act too much by “Godly” impulses and you start playing God. And that’s a holy shame.”

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

What irks me into anger is the opinion I read of some religious yokel who stated, and I quote loosely, “Gay marriage is not a civil rights issue. Black people have no choice. They are born black. But gay people choose to be gay.”

This insults everyone.

First of all, I have never met a single Gay person who has chosen to be Gay. I have met some Gay people who have chosen to repress their sexuality and turn to food. This renders them elephantine and certainly date-free. I have met Gay people who took a long time to come out of the closet. This is not a problem, just a journey. But to say that someone chooses to be gay? No wonder there are so many homophobes. They must wake up each day and wonder, “Is today the day I’m going to act on my minor homo-erotic impulses and choose to become a big devil-worshipping homo?”

And even if being gay was actually a choice, well, is it such an awful choice? Considering overpopulation? Actually, given the state of our air, living a gay lifestyle is probably the sanest choice. But friends, you, the Miss Informed, it is not a choice.

Further bad taste:

Saying that Black people are born Black so they have no choice, while being true, just sounds kind of tacky and ill stated.

But let’s move past the victimization of Black people for a moment, which I would never deny or pretend has not been absolutely horrific in our country. Black Americans were treated the worst way possible. And when I imagine slavery, I am filled with murderous rage. I hate it when someone tells me that I have to get up before 10 AM. I cannot imagine someone threatening to whip me if I balked at having to plow the back forty. So, yes, the deal for Black people was rotten and the prejudice, especially in the deep south, let’s face it, has been almost insurmountable. But during the last forty years, at least ideologically, if not materially, it has gotten better. I believe the material will come. Though I do not deny that when you run the numbers on Black wealth compared with White wealth, any human accountant hangs his head in shame. It’s disgusting.

Black people and all Women, with the support of all kinds of other people, have fought like hell for full, equal citizenship in every way. And it has been won. Again, only ideologically. But still, it has been won. So WHY THE FUCK on earth are Black people so against Gay people sharing the same rights? I have to tell you, we Gay people are pretty furious about this. Though the original statement of the religious yokel above made no mention of Black ideological violence against Gay people, I had to add it here. The question of civil rights for Black citizens compared with Gay citizens is no longer the immediate discussion. The real trouble, now, when considering Black citizens and Gay citizens is that Black citizens, by a large majority, want to disenfranchise Gay ones, which eclipses the whole discussion. SHAME, shame, SHAME on you, Black Homophobes who hide behind the cloak of religion. You can’t do that. You must stop it. Today.

It is with great sadness that I report that Don and I put our beloved cat Oliver down today. His health had been declining for several weeks and he stopped eating about 10 days ago. His quality of life was rapidly deteriorating and we decided it was best to do it now before it got too bad. Never an easy decision, but we both feel it was the right one. He was 16 1/2, and he died peacefully in my arms, purring right up until the last moment. He was an incredible pet -- so friendly and loving and beautiful. He gave and recieved so much love during his life, and that is a beautiful thing. He will be sorely missed. Goodbye, my boy.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

The Mormon Church, Focus on the Family, The Knights of Columbus and the American Family Association along with a bunch of other moronic bozos pumped forty million dollars into the airwaves of California to terrify people (about their children, mostly) into voting YES on Proposition 8.

Fuck them all.

During a civil rights fight, sometimes you have to behave like Martin Luther King Jr., and then sometimes, you gotta go full Malcolm X.

When I was in college I used to say, con motto, “I understand the fury of black people. If I was black, I’d be out of control with anger over being so oppressed. I’d wreak havoc.”

What I was really saying without realizing it was that I was a furious oppressed minority. But it was easier to see it as something outside of myself. For surely, a white guy at a nice college had no reason to be upset. But I was.

And I am.

To have those MMU’s, THE MISERABLE MORMONS OF UTAH, march into California to aid in getting the votes to add an amendment to our constitution to legally discriminate against gay couples is something that cannot be taken like a gentlemen. This now means war.

There is much hope. There is a law in California that states if the constitution is AMENDED, it can be done so by a simple majority referendum (which is ridiculous, but as we have seen, true). However, if the constitution is revised, which in this case it has been REVISED because it removes equal protection for certain citizens, then the only legal course for this REVISED CONSTITUTION action is through the legislature and NOT by referendum.

Legal teams friendly to the equal protection of gay people are moving forward using this tact to beat away this new REVISED constitution parading around as if it were solely an amendment. The response from the terrified religious right? “No fair! You can’t do that! That’s why we did all this and spent all this money! So you can never be heard from again!”

What do they think? The legal battle is over? Really? This will not end until gay marriage is legal in the State of California. I always remember a weird little story about a dog and a rabbit. The dog is running toward the rabbit because it wants to eat it. But the rabbit runs even faster away from the dog because it wants to live.

Gay people want to live. We will run faster and we will win. A hard rain is gonna fall on you, you wretched dogs, and you will go hungry.

My advice:

Miserable Mormons: Stay out of our state.

Knights of Columbus: Go choke on your sauce. Being of half Italian heritage, having even been given some strange awards by your organization in high school for having this boot blood, I once entered your strange hall and I immediately despised your creepy, moldy VFW stench and your peasant, backward parochialism. You make me embarrassed to be Italian. Stay out of our state.

Focus on the Family and The American Family Association: Your children, probably about ten percent of them, are gay. Gay as geese. Gay as ganders. Gay. How nice of you to discriminate against your own children, you vile ideologues. Stay out of our state.

Total war.

For the more than ten million voters who voted YES on proposition 8: You go to bed every night now, understanding that you have reduced your being. You are now smaller. And for this smallness, you will have less. When less comes your way, know that it is a physical manifestation of your decrease. So, when you are in pain due to your decrease, know that this pain was cause by your filling in the YES dot on the ballot card, along with the other small things you do every day that manifest your smallness, you small, scared beasts.

For the almost ten million voters who voted NO on proposition 8: Thank you. Thank you. I have met so many people, most of them straight people, who are as passionate as I am, even more so at times, about the equal rights of every human being in the great State of California. My neighbor still has his NO ON PROP 8 sign up on his lawn, next to a burning candle. It is a kind of vigil, I assume. Thank you, neighbor. Thank you, everyone. The numbers are closing in. It is tight. And soon, with legal action, and any other action we have at hand, we shall overcome.

And if I see any of you miserable Mormons crossing our state line again to spread your hatred, I am going to slap you fucking senseless with a recently used ten inch dildo.

Monday, November 03, 2008

PLEASE VOTE. Though it would make perfect sense to write about Election Day Eve, I have one more play to write about before I leave New York City to return to Los Angeles for the election night party, and the monster is Young Frankenstein.

Look, I just went because it was a family thing. Two kids coming, one nine and one ten years old.

What do you take these boys to see? Mary Poppins? They had no interest. Spamalot? The parents had already seen it. Billy Elliot? But wouldn’t that look like I was pushing ballet on the boys?

Halloween weekend, Young Frankenstein it is!

Because of the New York Marathon, no one was in town so getting tickets at TKTS was a breeze.

Oh Readers! Young Frankenstein was hilarious. So much better than The Producers, which I experienced as pure pain.

Susan Stroman directed the scary hell out of it. There were physical bits that worked exceptionally well, including physical comedy that tickled one into tears.

The biggest comic role, Igor, was played by Christopher Fitzgerald with a perfect touch and like the rest of the cast, not as an imitation of the original actors from the movie.

Roger Bart as Dr. Frankenstein was perfectly pleasing. I actually worked with him years ago. He was a pleasant chap then and a highly watchable one now. He had such long cool hair when we were in our twenties. Easy going, breezy guy.

Beth Leavel as Frau Bucher hit the right notes. Kelly Sullivan as Inga did what she could with the role. Michele Ragusa stayed so far away from Madeline Kahn in this characterization, you wish she hadn’t.

An added bonus for me was the show was written by Thomas Meehan along with Mel Brooks. Thomas Meehan is from my home town and he wrote, gasp, Annie. On career day in high school, I went to hear him speak about how he wrote Annie---just a handful of us in a classroom. He was speaking again during the afternoon and on career day, you either went in the morning or the afternoon to your chosen event. But I had to go twice, so I could hear him speak again. I went to my French class and told my teacher I was cutting her class to go hear Thomas Meehan, for a second time. She was fine with that.

Look, you can get tickets half price, easily, for Young Frankenstein. And it is worth it. Sure, if you know the movie it is a greater experience. And the music, well, it is not memorable. Actually, there are a couple of times when the singers melted into very close harmonies. One could have enjoyed even more of that. I mean, if you’re going to write a musical, why not write some cool music?

But, frankly, it was all about bits, this play. And they were good bits, well executed, snappy and very funny. Light as a feather. The play felt even faster than the movie.

Lighting techniques were used that made the set seem half stage, half movie, which worked to the show’s advantage. Lightning, too. Huge castle sets. A roll in the hay that flew through the woods. And my, what knockers.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Kindness, written by Adam Rapp, now playing at Playwrights Horizons, is a somewhat absurdist, somewhat naturalistic mysterious murder but not murder play. In a world of sharp alienation and uncaring discord.

What saves the day? Ultimately, there is kindness, which is what this play is all about. Not some feel good kindness, but a bigger kindness, the forgiving kind. A cancer ridden mother who has no energy to try to understand her son and a scorned society girl who is going nowhere except perhaps one day to prison, surround a young man who is quite removed from and saddened by his life.

The society girl kills for cash and eggs on the son to kill his own mother.

If he were to kill her, would it be an act of kindness since he would be putting her out of her misery? Or would it be an act of kindness to not kill her, to let her live the remaining days of her disease ridden life, miserable, vulnerable, coughing up blood. You decide.

I keep seeing plays that have ambiguous endings. Must be the echo effect of a bunch of MFA teachers from ten years ago who are afraid to commit to a point of view for fear of appearing foolish, or maybe they don’t think people should know each other. A shame thing.

But this play, well, Adam Rapp has a special way of making it his, even with the ambiguity. It is not MFA progeny. It is his voice. True and despairing and very funny.

The acting in Kindness is wonderful. Across. Adam Rapp directed and it reminds me that directing one’s own material is often a perfect idea.

The play, while very funny in spots, left me somewhat cold, but then, after the final moments, left me crying my eyes out as I walked along Forty-Second Street beneath the circus lighting of all the urban redevelopment.

This mother/son play, the relationship really beating at the heart of the thing, is simply sad. And though many theatre goers I observed leaving the building had the look of smug subscribers who were thrilled they get to be audience members of such “edgy” “smart” fare, I just thought it was so Fucking sad.